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[vassock]

Just wondering. I started playing like this because I just can't wrap my mind around the digging of one rock producing "infinite" sources of water. Water should only be functionally unlimited if you have access to the ocean/sea.

[Khthon]

I can understand where you're coming from, but I would think aside from being one of the best sources of water a dwarf can have, that aquifer water is, as a rule, going to be the easiest type of flowing water on your FPS.

[namuras]

Think of an aquifier not as a single sourceblock of water, but as a flowing underground river...

[vanatteveldt]

I live in Amsterdam. Whenever anything is dug (foundations, metro lines, etc), they need to  dam off the sides (usually with temporary steel sides) and continually pump out the ground water. Of course, this isn't actually an infinite water source (see e.g. the high plains aquifer), but since aquifers can be hundreds or thousands of kilometers across and tens to hundreds of meters deep, they can be practically infinite on DF scale. It's hard to find good estimates, but the high plains aquifer is more than 300 meters thick at its thickest, and runs from Wyoming to Texas; in some places more than 200 million litres are extracted anually per square kilometer. The nature article cited below estimates that total groundwater can cover the earth's land with a layer of water 180m deep.

So, real world aquifers aren't an infinite source of water, but they're pretty darn close . I think it might be more realistic if it would flow a bit slower, but that statement isn't based on anything.


- https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2590
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

[Dorsidwarf]

I live in Amsterdam. Whenever anything is dug (foundations, metro lines, etc), they need to  dam off the sides (usually with temporary steel sides) and continually pump out the ground water. Of course, this isn't actually an infinite water source (see e.g. the high plains aquifer), but since aquifers can be hundreds or thousands of kilometers across and tens to hundreds of meters deep, they can be practically infinite on DF scale. It's hard to find good estimates, but the high plains aquifer is more than 300 meters thick at its thickest, and runs from Wyoming to Texas; in some places more than 200 million litres are extracted anually per square kilometer. The nature article cited below estimates that total groundwater can cover the earth's land with a layer of water 180m deep.

So, real world aquifers aren't an infinite source of water, but they're pretty darn close . I think it might be more realistic if it would flow a bit slower, but that statement isn't based on anything.


- https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2590
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

I assume OP meant the fact that if you mine all around a tile of aquifer rock it will still produce an infinite flow of water

[Aelwen]

I always play without them. Maybe some day I'll try to break through some aquifer but now i am a noob.

[StrikaAmaru]

I play without aquifers, and have been playing so since 2013. My reasoning isn't realism, it's that they're annoying.

There have been some play-throughs where I went in the raws and removed some, but not all, the aquifer tags; the end result of such play-throughs was that I just ignored the aquifer altogether, so eh.

The only fort with full map aquifers I ever played was the legendary BattleFailed. I channeled through that one, then also ignored it, except for a well built in the hospital.

So my opinion is that unless you want to make some megaproject involving way too many waterwheels, aquifers are meh.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

I like aquifers because I always embark on biome edges and there's usually a dry path to stone. It just means I have to choose the entrance wisely and dig deep before digging outward, and the benefits are minor but still useful. Unlimited water is nothing to sneeze at. Possible uses include:

Building your entrance so that constantly flowing water washes dwarves so they don't bring in contaminants (more useful in evil embarks or if your cavern tunnel is accessed from the surface).

You can put water wherever you want it, just by digging up. (If you are clever, you don't need to lose a peasant to do this.) Pools for practicing swimming, wells you never need to worry about replenishing and which don't open your fortress to the cavern, water cannons to install next to your Breakfast Pit...

Obsidian generators.

Yes, a river could do most of this, but they're not particularly spread-out or high-volume usually. This means that you have to dig long channels across the embark and ration the water when doing Stupid Water Tricks with goblins. Each tile of aquifer is like a river inflow tile! (I think.)

If you're a noob, or you don't like spending the time to double-slit or search for a good multi-biome embark, or you just don't do much with water, then disabling aquifers is acceptable, but I think too many people see the hassle and not the utility.

[pisskop]

Self-imposed challenge is the only challenge in the game.  Why kill that?

[George_Chickens]

Aquifers are so easy to avoid that it's actually more effort in the long run to remove them. I don't see the point.

[Pvt. Pirate]

i never played with aquifer. reading about them in the wiki was reason enough for that decision.